The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has paid cumulatively N689.15 billion as pension accrued right to Federal Government retirees under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) in the last 11 years.

The Acting Director General of the National Pension Commission (PenCom), Hajia Aisha Dahir-Umar, who gave the hint in a media chat, said that the payments were made from July, 2007 to date.

She explained that the amount set aside for the settlement of accrued pension rights of Federal Government employees entitled to pension rights was a minimum of five percent of their salaries.

The PenCom boss clarified: “This category of pension benefits relates only to FGN treasury funded employees that worked prior to 30 June, 2004. The pension right is recognition of the entitlement for FGN treasury funded workers, who had worked before the enactment of the Pension Reform Act in June, 2004.”

In addition, the pension management expert pointed out that a Retirement Benefits Bond Redemption Fund (RBBRF) Account is domiciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria by the Federal Government to facilitate payment of accrued pension right entitlements.

She disclosed that since January, 2018 to date, a total of N39.28 billion had been released to pay some outstanding accrued pension right of federal employees, adding however that “there are outstanding payments”

Dahir-Umar expressed optimism that the Federal Government would release the funds soon to offset the arrears.

This is even as she said that currently the enrollees in the CPS had grown from the commencement of registration in February 2006 to 8.27 million as at the third quarter this year, adding that the private sector accounts for 4.69 million or 56.72 percent of the contributors while the public sector has 3.58 million contributors.

In addition, Dahir-Umar disclosed that the value of pension fund assets under management had grown from N265 billion in 2006 to N8.33 trillion as at the end of August, 2018.

While saying that the commission has been strategizing to expand the scope of the participation in the CPS to increase both the number of participants and pension contributions, she expressed the hope that the Micro Pension Plan, which will be launched soon, would assist the commission in achieving its CPS expansion dream.